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wyntrchylde's reviews
630 reviews
Wolverine: Old Man Logan Vol. 6: Days of Anger by Ed Brisson
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
3.5
Wolverine: Old Man Logan: Days of Anger
Author: Brisson, Deodata Jr, Martin, Petit
=======================
REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
Why this book:
Because I’ve read the other 5 volumes and I wanna see the next part of the story.
_________________
Favorite Character:
The Hulk Gang…they remind me of that weird X-Files episode where the family tree didn’t fork…at all. They have a super creepy aura that built up over the entire Old Man Logan milieu. Them chasing him across dimensions is very much in-character for them. And not a surprise that there were survivors after he thought he had taken care of all of them. Bruce was prolific in the ickiest way possible. That dimension’s Bruce Banner was brain damaged from all the gamma radiation, but his whole family thing is just…ick.
Hawkeye when he's done right is awesome.
Least Favorite Character:
The easily manipulated, inbred members of the Hulk Gang. They are what they are, but once Daddy Bruce was gone, and Logan tore through the majority of the family in the original OML storyline, the brightest bulbs aren't left on the string for Maestro to pick up and use. This should've been a Juxtaposition, but they are a favorite and a least favorite.
We Can’t Go On Together With Suspicious Minds:
So, he's a Maestro, not the Maestro. Probably another multiversal refugee like the Hulk Gang. Was half convinced he was Old Man Hawkeye before he hulked out.
Plot Holes/Out of Character:
Considering that Logan has been taught over and over in this series that he should let his friends help him, it appears that he forgot this lesson again.
Favorite Scene:
The diner fight is excellent. Love me some Logan vs the Hulk Gang fights.
Favorite Quote:
Maestro’s nihilism and expiration date speech. Well done.
Cover and Interior Art:
This one is beautifully drawn and colored.
The visuals of Malachi and Maestro are well done. Maestro in both normal and hulked out form is greatness.
Confirmation Bias:
Telegraphing the turncoat of n the Hulks’ ranks.
Questions and Answers:
Started to ask why Maestro is so afraid of Logan, but he's been wading through the Hulk Gang at a pretty good clip ever since the Wasteland.
Calling the Ball:
Think I know who Malachi is. Not giving it away…or who he grows up to be, but yeah…
_________________
Pacing:
Very well paced.
Last Page Sound:
Well done.
Author: Brisson, Deodata Jr, Martin, Petit
=======================
REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
Why this book:
Because I’ve read the other 5 volumes and I wanna see the next part of the story.
_________________
Favorite Character:
The Hulk Gang…they remind me of that weird X-Files episode where the family tree didn’t fork…at all. They have a super creepy aura that built up over the entire Old Man Logan milieu. Them chasing him across dimensions is very much in-character for them. And not a surprise that there were survivors after he thought he had taken care of all of them. Bruce was prolific in the ickiest way possible. That dimension’s Bruce Banner was brain damaged from all the gamma radiation, but his whole family thing is just…ick.
Hawkeye when he's done right is awesome.
Least Favorite Character:
The easily manipulated, inbred members of the Hulk Gang. They are what they are, but once Daddy Bruce was gone, and Logan tore through the majority of the family in the original OML storyline, the brightest bulbs aren't left on the string for Maestro to pick up and use. This should've been a Juxtaposition, but they are a favorite and a least favorite.
We Can’t Go On Together With Suspicious Minds:
So, he's a Maestro, not the Maestro. Probably another multiversal refugee like the Hulk Gang. Was half convinced he was Old Man Hawkeye before he hulked out.
Plot Holes/Out of Character:
Considering that Logan has been taught over and over in this series that he should let his friends help him, it appears that he forgot this lesson again.
Favorite Scene:
The diner fight is excellent. Love me some Logan vs the Hulk Gang fights.
Favorite Quote:
Maestro’s nihilism and expiration date speech. Well done.
Cover and Interior Art:
This one is beautifully drawn and colored.
The visuals of Malachi and Maestro are well done. Maestro in both normal and hulked out form is greatness.
Confirmation Bias:
Telegraphing the turncoat of n the Hulks’ ranks.
Questions and Answers:
Started to ask why Maestro is so afraid of Logan, but he's been wading through the Hulk Gang at a pretty good clip ever since the Wasteland.
Calling the Ball:
Think I know who Malachi is. Not giving it away…or who he grows up to be, but yeah…
_________________
Pacing:
Very well paced.
Last Page Sound:
Well done.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Incest, Self harm, Torture, Violence, Blood, Murder, Gaslighting, and War
The Women of Rothschild: The Untold Story of the World's Most Famous Dynasty by Natalie Livingstone
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
fast-paced
4.5
The Women of Rothschild
Author: Natalie Livingstone
=======================
REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
Why this book:
I’m on a history and non-fiction kick.
_________________
The Feel:
There’s a great sweep of history.
Favorite Character:
Hannah Barret Cohen Rothschild
Constance de Rothschild, Lady Battersea
Rozsika von Wertheimstein
Nica (Kathleen Annie Pannonica) Rothschild
Miriam Louisa Rothschild
The stories of these and the other Rothschild women was fabulously told here. Especially once we got past where they had to live in the reflected light of the Rothschild men.
Least Favorite Character:
Mayer Amschel Rothschild using his will to throw all of the women in the family out of the family business, forever. Nice guy there. Product of the times. But considering that his wife Gutle and his daughters were part and parcel of his businesses success, it is a mean-spirited slight. And you can see it being used as a weapon by the misogynists in the family down through the ages. And leaving his wife the house and a trust, but the trust is locked within the Rothschild businesses and those are handled by the sons and she has no say in how it was used. And again, yes, product of the times, but damn. He wouldn’t have been a success without Gutle. And this is how he rewarded her…and all their female progeny. Though despite his interdiction, the women of the family seemed to generationally fall into leadership roles within the family, society, politics, and banking either through the passing of their family patriarchs or some shortcomings of the men in their generation.
Baron Jules Adolphe de Koenigswarter was classic misogyny and toxic masculinity. All the things that attracted him and Nica to each other before World War Two died on the vine amidst the horrors of war and the marriage staggered on in the aftermath. As his career advanced, he expected her to be seen and not heard and to “know her place.” He went so far as to destroy her record collection when she didn’t do to please him. He sounds like a horrid little man.
We Can’t Go On Together With Suspicious Minds:
So, the British promised Chaim Weizmann and the proto-Israelites, and the Prince of Mecca that the British Empire supported a homeland for both Arabs and Jews in Palestine. Lord Crewe could've been a modern American politician.
Favorite Concept:
Hannah Barret Cohen Rothschild sneaking away to the exchanges in Paris while she was supposed to be attending her daughter who was expecting her grandchild.
Uhm Moments:
So, the cousin loving in pre-20th century Euro society extended beyond royalty to aristocracy and wealth. Whole lotta keeping it in the family. Ick.
Juxtaposition:
While interesting, the “focus” on the Rothschild women wanders severely telling us the story of the men while the women stand at the edges of the story, at least in the early chapters. The story of Hannah Barret Cohen Rothschild and her husband Nathan expanding his businesses in England including getting involved in smuggling payroll and such to the Duke of Wellington in Spain.. And he and his brothers on the Continent making huge currency exchanges between the pound and the franc behind the scenes during the Napoleonic wars. But that story is told as a part…an overwhelming part of the story of Nathan being the first of the Rothschilds to move to and marry into the growing English Jewish community with a strong woman who softens his strident and gruff business personality increasing the business and the tenor of his professional associations through her efforts. In fairness, as the history advanced, Hannah Rothschild became a force of nature in politics through the soft power of socializing and hosting, and her charitable work.
Anachronism:
The whole scribbling notes, writing letters, and diaries as opposed to modern social media…a poorer world? The difference in writing words that you’re never sure anyone is going to read as opposed to writing words designed to elicit someone to read them.
Pareidolia:
Miriam’s husband, married in wartime, George Lane, nee Gyorgy Lanyi, being involved in X Troop of No. 10 Commando and being dropped into northern France to obtain details of German mines and prepare for Allied landings reminds of an Anglo version of Inglorious Basterds, though probably with fewer baseball bats.
The Unexpected:
So MUCH cousin marriage. Exceeding European royalty factors, even. The branches of the tree grow back together so much that it is hard to keep track of.
_________________
Pacing:
Very well paced.
Last Page Sound:
This was a really good book.
Conclusions I’ve Drawn:
Having survived World War One largely intact, the impending horror of World War Two and the Holocaust hangs over the pages. It is similar to the feeling when you are reading a book you really love and you approach the end, and you don’t want to get there. This book is wonderfully well written. The characters are well fleshed out and true to life. I don’t want to read what is about to happen to them as it happens to all of the people of Europe.
The Crusades Through Arab Eyes by Amin Maalouf
informative
medium-paced
3.0
The Crusades Through Arab Eyes
Author: Amin Maalouf
Publisher: Schocken Books
Publishing Date: 1984
=======================
REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
Why this book:
Makes a fascinating juxtaposed view to what is usually presented in Western realms from our own perspective.
_________________
Hmm Moments:
So many of the successful leaders of the Muslims in opposing the Franj were felled by the hands of people in their entourages. Body servants, nobles, people who approach them on the street, etc, the knives are all about. Some of those were of the sect of the Assassins, but most were just people wronged for this reason or that reason or acting for an outside power, usually another Muslim leader.
Uhm Moments:
Wish the various Franj invasions and adventurism was associated with whichever Crusade they were part of, but it is on brand that it isn't since those names wouldn't mean anything from the Muslim perspective.
Apropos of Nothing and Everything:
Louis the IX of France and Ayuub of Egypt sending messages filled with strident purple prose threats back and forth reminds me of Monty Python and the Holy Grail when the Frenchmen in their castle won’t treat with Graham Chapman’s King Arthur. IYKYK.
Juxtaposition:
I never connected Genghis Khan’s later life with the Crusades. Timeline-wise, he was a definite influence on events and Muslim and Franj conquest adventurism in his driving of some conquered Turks before him into Muslim lands. These impacts lasted beyond Genghis’s life into those of his heirs.
_________________
Pacing:
Well paced.
Last Page Sound:
Interesting.
Questions I’m Left With:
From a cultural/historical and Arabic perspective, did the Crusades ever end? Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt, the post-WW1 era of French and British Mandates and every invasion and action by Western powers in the region all being seen as merely the latest iteration of the Crusades?
Author: Amin Maalouf
Publisher: Schocken Books
Publishing Date: 1984
=======================
REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
Why this book:
Makes a fascinating juxtaposed view to what is usually presented in Western realms from our own perspective.
_________________
Hmm Moments:
So many of the successful leaders of the Muslims in opposing the Franj were felled by the hands of people in their entourages. Body servants, nobles, people who approach them on the street, etc, the knives are all about. Some of those were of the sect of the Assassins, but most were just people wronged for this reason or that reason or acting for an outside power, usually another Muslim leader.
Uhm Moments:
Wish the various Franj invasions and adventurism was associated with whichever Crusade they were part of, but it is on brand that it isn't since those names wouldn't mean anything from the Muslim perspective.
Apropos of Nothing and Everything:
Louis the IX of France and Ayuub of Egypt sending messages filled with strident purple prose threats back and forth reminds me of Monty Python and the Holy Grail when the Frenchmen in their castle won’t treat with Graham Chapman’s King Arthur. IYKYK.
Juxtaposition:
I never connected Genghis Khan’s later life with the Crusades. Timeline-wise, he was a definite influence on events and Muslim and Franj conquest adventurism in his driving of some conquered Turks before him into Muslim lands. These impacts lasted beyond Genghis’s life into those of his heirs.
_________________
Pacing:
Well paced.
Last Page Sound:
Interesting.
Questions I’m Left With:
From a cultural/historical and Arabic perspective, did the Crusades ever end? Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt, the post-WW1 era of French and British Mandates and every invasion and action by Western powers in the region all being seen as merely the latest iteration of the Crusades?
The Longest Line on the Map: The United States, the Pan-American Highway, and the Quest to Link the Americas by Eric Rutkow
informative
slow-paced
3.0
The Longest Line on the Map
Author: Eric Rutlow
Publisher: Scribner / Simon & Schuster
Publishing Date: 2019
=======================
REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
Why this book:
I’m on a nonfiction kick, seem to be getting more enjoyment out of them than fiction. Love travelogs, but this one turned out to be more history and politics than travelog.
_________________
The Feel:
Told the story they wanted to tell rather than the one promised in the title.
Least Favorite Character:
Most of the Oligarchs of rail and finance who appear in these pages are severe bastards. Same with the politicos involved. Whole lot of colonial thinking, moving pieces around on a chessboard and borders and lines around on the map, with no regard for those pieces and lines representing people’s lives.
The blustery Congressman/Senator who gins up a storm of conspiracy, forces hearings, lets fly accusation after accusation, and then, the report doesn't move the charges he made forwards in a way that they could go before a judge at a criminal proceeding is classic. Horrid. But classic.
We Can’t Go On Together With Suspicious Minds:
Whole lotta dragging of the feet and talking about other stuff before it gets to the Pan-American Highway. Railroads, and the politics and science of American roadways and highways. Halfway through the book before the concept of a Pan-American Highway is even broached and, even then, it is all about politics rather than the surveying, logistics, materials, and route of the actual highway. I realize that in international circumstances all of that is part and parcel, but we’re over 200+ pages deep.
Plot Holes/Out of Character:
If they wanted to write a Pan-American Railroad book, they should have. Doing 140+ pages of that as preamble seems a bit much. Lot of good info there, but not really, truly on topic. Same with a history of roadbuilding and science of roadbuilding, both of these could have been done in service to the story of the Pan-American highway story, instead of taking the entire middle section of the book, after the preamble was taken up by the railroads and dreams of a Pan-American Railroad, instead of the titular subject matter.
Tropes:
The historical namedropping is large in the overly large, off-topic section on railroads, railroading, and colonialism. Not unwarranted, but some of the famous names that cameo, wander around the extreme edges of the narrative, and then disappear, doesn’t exactly advance the story.
Turd in the Punchbowl:
Spends the entire first third of the book mired in the aborted history of the Pan-American Railroads fits and starts and bits and pieces, and sidelighting to the Panama Canal before we even get to the idea of the Pan-American Highway. This is going a long way to justify the last line of the subtitle, The United States, the Pan-American Highway, and the Quest to Link the Americas.
Wisdom:
Dictators for life and American tycoons made life hell for the peoples of Central America during the so-called Gilded Age.
Juxtaposition:
Whole lotta financial speculating dressed up in high ideals butting up against realities on the ground.
The names dropped in the railroading section are huge, mythic, American historical figures…while the ones in the roadbuilding history and science section, not so much.
Anachronism:
Bicyclist vs Farmer evolving into Farmer vs Motorist in the Good Roads movement.
Logic Gaps:
The jingoistic crap epitomized by the purported French and British awestruckedness at the nascent American roadbuilding ingenuity while both having multiple orders of magnitude more usable, driveable, and better conditioned roads than America is an asinine assertion that I’m sure played well to the rubes reading the newspapers, biographies, and monographs of that era.
Questions and Answers:
Why wouldn’t you build bridges across the Panama Canal as part of the construction of the canal in the first place?
The Unexpected:
The Pan-American Highway…except for this little 250 mile wide piece.
Forgotten Lesson/Forgotten Common Sense:
Missed Opportunity:
Barely a hundred pages left and the author hasn’t done more than talk platitudes and politics of the South American part of the Pan-American Highway. Short shrift is being given to that. Once the focus of the books shifted away from the railroads and onto the highway, it bogged down in Central America and stayed there. It is interesting, but it isn’t completing the road, which won’t be completed anyway thanks to the Darien Gap. The highway, while it is traversable all the way to Panama and across the canal, doesn’t connect into Columbia through the swamps and rivers of the Darien Gap.
_________________
Last Page Sound:
Well...so…they never really finished it. Went into this wanting more travelogue than history. I like history, just not what I was here for with this one. Got too much Gilded Age, Robber Baron than I really would have preferred. And spent way too much time on the railroads. Totally left out what happened in South America, whether the road networks down there became interconnected or not in this period. “Pan-American”, in name only.
Author Assessment:
I enjoyed the writing and the story, but the essay seemed to wander from its purported focus and lose itself in side quests along the way
Author: Eric Rutlow
Publisher: Scribner / Simon & Schuster
Publishing Date: 2019
=======================
REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
Why this book:
I’m on a nonfiction kick, seem to be getting more enjoyment out of them than fiction. Love travelogs, but this one turned out to be more history and politics than travelog.
_________________
The Feel:
Told the story they wanted to tell rather than the one promised in the title.
Least Favorite Character:
Most of the Oligarchs of rail and finance who appear in these pages are severe bastards. Same with the politicos involved. Whole lot of colonial thinking, moving pieces around on a chessboard and borders and lines around on the map, with no regard for those pieces and lines representing people’s lives.
The blustery Congressman/Senator who gins up a storm of conspiracy, forces hearings, lets fly accusation after accusation, and then, the report doesn't move the charges he made forwards in a way that they could go before a judge at a criminal proceeding is classic. Horrid. But classic.
We Can’t Go On Together With Suspicious Minds:
Whole lotta dragging of the feet and talking about other stuff before it gets to the Pan-American Highway. Railroads, and the politics and science of American roadways and highways. Halfway through the book before the concept of a Pan-American Highway is even broached and, even then, it is all about politics rather than the surveying, logistics, materials, and route of the actual highway. I realize that in international circumstances all of that is part and parcel, but we’re over 200+ pages deep.
Plot Holes/Out of Character:
If they wanted to write a Pan-American Railroad book, they should have. Doing 140+ pages of that as preamble seems a bit much. Lot of good info there, but not really, truly on topic. Same with a history of roadbuilding and science of roadbuilding, both of these could have been done in service to the story of the Pan-American highway story, instead of taking the entire middle section of the book, after the preamble was taken up by the railroads and dreams of a Pan-American Railroad, instead of the titular subject matter.
Tropes:
The historical namedropping is large in the overly large, off-topic section on railroads, railroading, and colonialism. Not unwarranted, but some of the famous names that cameo, wander around the extreme edges of the narrative, and then disappear, doesn’t exactly advance the story.
Turd in the Punchbowl:
Spends the entire first third of the book mired in the aborted history of the Pan-American Railroads fits and starts and bits and pieces, and sidelighting to the Panama Canal before we even get to the idea of the Pan-American Highway. This is going a long way to justify the last line of the subtitle, The United States, the Pan-American Highway, and the Quest to Link the Americas.
Wisdom:
Dictators for life and American tycoons made life hell for the peoples of Central America during the so-called Gilded Age.
Juxtaposition:
Whole lotta financial speculating dressed up in high ideals butting up against realities on the ground.
The names dropped in the railroading section are huge, mythic, American historical figures…while the ones in the roadbuilding history and science section, not so much.
Anachronism:
Bicyclist vs Farmer evolving into Farmer vs Motorist in the Good Roads movement.
Logic Gaps:
The jingoistic crap epitomized by the purported French and British awestruckedness at the nascent American roadbuilding ingenuity while both having multiple orders of magnitude more usable, driveable, and better conditioned roads than America is an asinine assertion that I’m sure played well to the rubes reading the newspapers, biographies, and monographs of that era.
Questions and Answers:
Why wouldn’t you build bridges across the Panama Canal as part of the construction of the canal in the first place?
The Unexpected:
The Pan-American Highway…except for this little 250 mile wide piece.
Forgotten Lesson/Forgotten Common Sense:
Missed Opportunity:
Barely a hundred pages left and the author hasn’t done more than talk platitudes and politics of the South American part of the Pan-American Highway. Short shrift is being given to that. Once the focus of the books shifted away from the railroads and onto the highway, it bogged down in Central America and stayed there. It is interesting, but it isn’t completing the road, which won’t be completed anyway thanks to the Darien Gap. The highway, while it is traversable all the way to Panama and across the canal, doesn’t connect into Columbia through the swamps and rivers of the Darien Gap.
_________________
Last Page Sound:
Well...so…they never really finished it. Went into this wanting more travelogue than history. I like history, just not what I was here for with this one. Got too much Gilded Age, Robber Baron than I really would have preferred. And spent way too much time on the railroads. Totally left out what happened in South America, whether the road networks down there became interconnected or not in this period. “Pan-American”, in name only.
Author Assessment:
I enjoyed the writing and the story, but the essay seemed to wander from its purported focus and lose itself in side quests along the way